Chapter 31

1It happened in the eleventh year, in the third month, in
the first day of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me,
saying,
2Son of man, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude:
Whom are you like in your greatness?
3Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in
Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, and of high
stature; and its top was among the thick boughs.
4The waters nourished
it, the deep made it to grow: the rivers of it ran round about its
plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field.
5Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and
its boughs were multiplied, and its branches became long by reason of many
waters, when it shot them forth.
6All the birds of the sky made
their nests in its boughs; and under its branches did all the animals of the
field bring forth their young; and under its shadow lived all great nations.
7Thus was it beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches;
for its root was by many waters.
8The cedars in the garden of God could
not hide it; the fir trees were not like its boughs, and the plane trees were
not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its
beauty.
9I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that
all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.
10Therefore thus said the Lord Yahweh: Because you are exalted in
stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is
lifted up in his height;
11I will even deliver him into the hand of the
mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him; I have driven him
out for his wickedness.
12Strangers, the terrible of the nations, have
cut him off, and have left him: on the mountains and in all the valleys his
branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the
land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and
have left him.
13On his ruin all the birds of the sky shall dwell, and
all the animals of the field shall be on his branches;
14to the end that
none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature,
neither set their top among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones
stand up on their height, even all who drink water: for they are all
delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, in the midst of the
children of men, with those who go down to the pit.
15Thus says the Lord
Yahweh: In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning: I covered
the deep for him, and I restrained the rivers of it; and the great waters
were stayed; and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the
field fainted for him.
16I made the nations to shake at the sound of his
fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit; and
all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water,
were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.
17They also went down
into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were
his arm, that lived under his shadow in the midst of the nations.
18To whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of
Eden? yet shall you be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts
of the earth: you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those who
are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord
Yahweh.